


Happy things

by Dontthrowsticksatme (dontthrowsticksatme)



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Medieval, Patronus, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 16:12:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8807503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontthrowsticksatme/pseuds/Dontthrowsticksatme
Summary: Nine year old Isolda lives with her mom in medieval England. They live just out of town and are absolutely hated by the town's people. Isa knows there are things she and her mom can do that other people can't, but other than that she doesn't really understand anything. Until she discovers what happens if she focusses on happy thoughts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mystery-madness (Abu)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mystery-madness+%28Abu%29).



> I don't know shit about witchcraft, medieval times or healing herbs and stuff. I made that up. If you do know anything about it, please tell me and I'll change it. Alos English is not my first language, so if I made silly mistakes, please also let me know.

Think of happy things, mommy said.

Happy things. Happy things. Happy things…

It wouldn’t work to just think the words ‘happy things’ over and over. Isolda took a deep breath and looked over at the town in the dale below. It didn’t look threatening at all, but to her it was worse than a forest full of wolves.

‘Get some bread,’ mommy said. ‘Just don’t listen to them, Isa,’ she said. ‘It’s only words.’ Easy for her to say. They didn’t call her devil’s child. They didn’t throw things at her. Didn’t make her trip so she fell with her face in the mud.

Happy things. ‘Think of your favourite things,’ mommy said. ‘Like daisies, and the stars at night.’ Or, Isa automatically thought, when the town was covered in mist and the hill they lived on seemed to be floating on a cloud.

Isa started walking.

Or feeling the dew on the grass between your bare toes in the morning. Or the special tea mommy made when Isa felt sick. Or the smell of the big kettle on the fire that she was never supposed to drink from, but made all the boys and girls that bought it jump in the air and ask mommy over and over if it would really work. Of course it would work, mommy would say, but only for a while. She always shook her head afterwards, mumbling to herself about how love never lasts anyway… Because daddy went away.

No, happy things: daddy’s old drawings, sitting on mommy’s lap, singing songs, laying in the sunshine, picking herbs together in the light of the full moon.

Then Isolda walked into town. It was like the light inside her head went out at once.

‘It’s the devil’s girl!’ a boy yelled and a group of children ran toward her. ‘Demon kid, demon kid! Everyone knows that you’re a witch!’

‘That doesn’t even rhyme,’ Isa snapped. The kids just laughed.

One of the kid’s mothers yelled to her daughter to keep away from Isolda. ‘You know how she scares me,’ Isa heard her whisper to the girl as she pulled her away.

Quickly, without looking at anyone, Isolda walked to the bakery, the only one where she was allowed in. Nobody talked to her there either, but at least they kept quiet long enough to let her say what she wanted and they took her money in exchange for bread.

Keeping her head down, she ran her errands. She knew exactly where she was tolerated for the sake of profit. Then she made sure to get home as quickly and quietly as she could.

Just before turning the last corner out of town, she heard kids scream. With her heart suddenly beating in her throat, she pushed her back against a wall. She knew they were just kids, but she was frightened of them. They were mean kids.

Quietly sitting down, she made herself as small as she could. Her heart was beating very loudly. She closed her eyes.

Happy things. The bread in her lap, the smell of it, the warmth of it… The sounds it made when mommy broke a piece of to give to Isolda. It made her belly warm just to think about it. Bread could be so nice; especially when you hardly had any. She remembered when she and her mom tried to bake one themselves and how weird it had turned out to be. It still tasted very nice when they dipped it in the soup though. It had been very cold outside: there was pearly white frost on the blankets, but mommy had wrapped the hot water bottle in the old sheep’s fur. When they put it between them under the blankets, lying in bed, they would get as warm and happy as you could wish for. 

Suddenly Isa felt something tingly in the palm of her hands. Her eyes flew open. There’d been a tiny spark. A really tiny spark, or was it smoke? She concentrated on the bread, pressing it between her knees and chest, thinking about the happy memory: lying in the warm bed with the smell of their own baked bread and the sound of the frost falling from the trees, on the roof…

And there it was again. It was a silvery glow, like smoke, but brighter. It was beautiful. It grew bigger as Isolda watched it swirl in the cup of her hands. They felt good, the sparks. Really good. They made her feel happy. It was like she was able to make her happiness grow out of her fingers.

Suddenly a kid screamed, real close-by. Isa jumped and the spark vanished; like it got scared as well. When she realized what she was doing, her hands started sweating. Nobody could find out she was able to make silver sparks grow out of her hands. Quickly she looked around, but the street was empty and there were no windows around. She wondered if the sparks could make her brave enough to cross the street where all the kids were.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feeling of the silver glow. She could feel them, as if they were right under her skin. It felt warm and comforting. A few seconds later she felt the feeling grow again, out of her skin. Excitedly she opened her eyes, but this time there wasn’t any smoke. Instead, a tiny little, silvery snake was curling between her fingers, looking at her rather worried. His head wobbled from side to side, but his eyes kept staring at her. It had eyes like shiny, black buttons. Looking at him, Isolda felt good, warm and confident. Like she was sitting by the fire with her mom and a cup of tea. She managed to make the snake curl around her wrist and hid it under her sleeve. From under there, it felt like the snake created a happy glow all over her body. Like she had an extra skin that protected her from the fear the kids made her feel.

Bravely, she got up and she turned the corner. All the boys and girls playing there fell silent. She felt them looking at her and out of the corners of her eyes she saw them getting closer, but she didn’t hear a word they were saying. Because Isolda was fully occupied by happy thoughts.

Crossing the street turned out to be as easy as picking flowers. She reached the quiet meadows that lead to her home without a single worry. Under a large oak tree she sat down for a moment, just to breath and the snake came out from under her sleeve. It played with her fingers and softly bit her pinkie. Staring at it, Isolda knew she would never have to feel alone again.


	2. Chapter 2

A loud banging on the door in the middle of the night scared Isolda wide awake. Her mom got out of bed and lit a candle.

‘Is someone at the door?’ Isolda whispered.

‘Isa, get under the bed and–…’

‘Run if you tell me to run, yes.’ She did as she was drilled to do a thousand times.

The banging started again and her mom straightened her back.

‘Help, please help!’ the person yelled and her mom’s face changed. From under the bed, Isolda saw her mom cautiously open the door.  Quietly she talked to someone, then stepped back. A man’s arm lay over her shoulder. He was limping and his face twitched in pain. Right next to him, clutching to his father’s coat, was a little boy, far younger than Isolda was. He was crying.

‘A wolf got to us,’ gasped the man. ‘The town is too far away, I had nowhere else to go.’

‘Isa, quick. Help me clear the table.’

Isa got out from under the bed. The man seemed surprised for a second but then moaned in pain again. He had to grab the table as not to fall. Isolda took all the stuff her mom handed her and put it away.  

‘Knife.’ Isa handed her mom a knife and she cut away a big piece of the man’s pants. There was a lot of blood. Isolda got nauseous looking at it, so she fixed her eyes at something else.

‘Candles, Isa. No, water.’

Isa took a bucket and went in the garden to get some water from the well. When she got back her mother had lit about ten candles and the man was lying flat on the table, breathing heavily. Sweat pearled on his face. Isolda froze a little inside.

‘Will he be okay?’ she quietly asked.

Her mom swallowed. ‘I need ginger, spearwort, basil and a cup from the copper cattle. No, from the black one.’

Isolda hurried to get everything she asked. ‘The big or the small black one?’

‘The smallest, quickly.’

Isolda put the cup, the ginger and the jar with basil on the table. ‘Good,’ said her mom, while crushing the basil and a bit of the ginger together in a bowl. Then she looked around, panicked. ‘The spearwort, dear, where’s the spearwort?’

‘There isn’t any,’ Isolda squeaked. 

She looked at Isolda like she was trying to change those words with her mind. The she started looking for it herself, but Isolda was certain. The jar where the spearwort had to be in was empty.

Isa’s mother put her hands over her mouth and closed her eyes. The little boy was crying louder and louder. The man was trying to soothe him, but tears were on his face too. The cloth around his leg was soaking with blood.

Suddenly mom snapped out of her thoughts. ‘Close your eyes,’ she told the man and added to the little boy: ‘You too. Don’t open them if you want to live, whatever happens, until I tell you you can.’

The man closed his eyes and put his hands over the big brown eyes of the little boy. It started crying even louder, until the man hushed him.

‘Come here, Isa.’ Her mother pulled a book from under the mattress they always slept on and flipped the pages. It was written in the secret language only Isa and her mom could speak. Her mom was speaking in it now to talk to Isa without the man understanding: ‘Can you read this word?’ Isa nodded. ‘Do you want to heal this man?’ She nodded again. ‘Then say this word in your mind. Really concentrate on it. Concentrate on stopping the blood, okay?’

‘Stopping the blood?’ Isa stammered, also in the secret language. ‘With my hands?’

‘Ssh, just do as I said.’

So Isa did. She put her hands above the wound, like mommy did, closed her eyes and thought the word. She thought it as hard as she could, as loud and as slowly as she could. She wanted to heal, she really did.

After a while, her mom sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Isa, but I need you to go outside.’

Isa held her breath for a second. ‘It’s dark.’

‘I know, I know it’s dark. But if this sir doesn’t get spearwort he dies. I can hold the blood until you get back, but I can’t heal him. Do you understand?’

‘You can go get the spearwort,’ Isa said.

‘Yes,’ her mom said. ‘I could.’

But Isa knew what would happen if she did. ‘I can’t hold the blood?’ she whispered.

Mom shook her head. ‘It’s not your fault. I never taught you.’

She had taught her exactly where the spearwort grew. ‘I’ll get it.’


	3. Chapter 3

‘You don’t have to though. You know that, Isa? You really, really don’t.’

Isa pretended not to hear. If she believed that, she would never go. It was dark. The man on the table got bitten by a wolf out there.

Isolda grabbed the basket they always used when they went out picking herbs and flowers and pretended that this would be just another nice night out with her mommy in the moonlight. Except that there was hardly any moonlight. And that she was completely alone.

Happy thoughts. Nothing would happen, nothing ever did. Her mom could do nothing against wolves either, so it didn’t matter if she was there or not.

  Her mom grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘If you hear anything, if you see anything, you come running straight back to me, you understand? And don’t walk anywhere we never walked, understood? _Only_ the paths we take, and do not walk beyond the spearwort. Be careful.’

Isa nodded, pulling herself loose. ‘I can do this, mommy.’

And she could. She could. By day… At the darkest of the night it was a completely different story. She knew where to go, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was not running back to the house, to her mom, at every little sound she heard. Rustling in the leaves above her, breaking of a branch next to her… everything made her jump and freeze.

She closed her eyes and convinced herself nothing was wrong. She just needed some courage.

That was it: she needed her silver friend. It was hard to find the happiness she needed for it to appear though. The small things she thought of earlier – dew on her toes, the fog around the hill, sitting by the fire –didn’t do anything to her, it just made her think of the bleeding man on the table and the empty jar on the mantelpiece where the spearwort was supposed to be. Taking a few extra steps she started thinking harder, trying to remember more happy things. She remembered last Christmas, when she and mommy were singing songs and kept singing louder and louder until it sounded terrible. She concentrated on that memory, concentrated with everything she had and started walking again. She remembered when daddy was still around and one summer they walked all the way to the top of the next hill and had a picnic in the grass. She concentrated on the happiness in the memory, the way they had laughed about her mom imitating a duck and dad pretending to be a howling wolf and eating her alive.  

The silver sparks started to rise under her skin already, she could feel them glow a bit. Isa closed her eyes, concentrated harder and tried to push the snake out of her fingers like she did before. But something was different. It was more difficult to do it. She had to focus on the memory again. She closed her eyes tightly and thought about her dad’s arms around her and her mom’s laugh. As soon as she felt the happiness, the sparks under her skin glowed way more than before. Suddenly, her whole body felt warm. Startled, she opened her eyes, just in time to see an enormous beast running from her hands. Isolda blinked in the white, bright light and froze. It was some sort of dog, or was it a bear? It ran to her and bumped his head softly against hers.

It was a huge dog. She had seen those once, a very long time ago, when her dad took her with him to the wolf hunt. Irish wolfhounds, he had called them.

‘Hello,’ Isa whispered, completely calm all of a sudden, and she stroked his head. With this dog next to her, she didn’t mind walking to the swamp at all. He happily ran around her, but never went further away from her than two meters. He illuminated the forest, so she could see that there was nothing to be scared of. She didn’t feel alone anymore, she didn’t feel scared thinking about all the blood in her home, she didn’t even feel cold. The dog was like a nice fire. She hurried up and ran with the dog to the swamp, where she had been so many times before with her mom, picked the right herbs and headed back to the house.

  When she came back at the door, she petted the dog and it vanished into thin air. Before she could get scared again, Isolda thought about how happy the dog made her feel and made the snake appear from her fingers. With it safely around her wrist, she went into her home.

Her mom kissed her face a dozen times and made a new potion for the man’s leg. Everything she asked Isolda, Isolda did at once. She didn’t feel nervous or scared anymore. When her mom was almost done, Isolda took the little boy on her lap and showed her the snake. He stopped crying as soon as he came near it, as if he felt the warmth and comfort of it as much as Isolda did.

After a while, mommy made the fire bigger and made  the boy and his father sit next to it. His leg was covered in some sort of paste Isolda’s mum made, with some cloth wrapped around it to keep it there. He looked much better, although very pale.

‘You can’t sleep here,’ mommy told them, ‘but you can stay until the sun rises.’ She gave them something of her special tea and poured some in for Isa and herself too. With a sigh she sat next to Isolda on the bed, but then she froze.

‘What’s this?’ She looked at Isa and took her arm. The snake vanished with a big poof of silver smoke.

Her mom gasped. ‘Isolda, what was that?’ she whispered. ‘What did you do? You have not showed that to anyone, did you?’

Frightened, Isa shook her head.

‘Don’t let anyone see what you can do, understood?’

‘Yes,’ Isa said. ‘Or they go away, like daddy, right?’

Her mom’s face saddened. ‘They can do a lot worse than leave, Isolda.’


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, the man and the boy left. The man was insanely grateful and even gave Isa and her mom a kiss each on their cheeks. He promised to send them some of the wolf fur he traded in as a thank you and as soon as he found himself a solid walking stick he safely walked off to his own village two hills further away.

Isa and her mom went back to bed. Isolda was so tired she fell asleep at once and didn’t wake up until hours later. When her mom woke up they went into town to get some food and to stock up on the stuff they used to help the man.

As soon as they walked up at the market square, her mom got tense. Apparently it was a market day. The place was crowded. And everyone there turned to stare at them. One by one. About a second it seemed to fall quiet. Then one woman broke the silence.

‘You got a nerve, coming here!’

‘We are not selling to witches,’ a man loudly said to one of his customers.

‘You belong on the stakes,’ one lady hissed at them as they passed by.

‘I’m sorry, Isolda,’ mommy whispered, as she pulled Isa closer to her. ‘I forgot what day it is.’

Right at that moment someone stuck out their leg. Isa’s mother didn’t see it. She tripped, landed in the mud and all her stuff rolled away. The people laughed and got closer. One of them even spit at her. Isolda tried to help her mom get up, but someone pulled her aside. ‘People like you should not have children!’

‘Everyone knows what you are.’

‘Those are rumors,’ her mom loudly said, in a brave attempt to stay dignified, but at the same time somebody kicked some mud in her direction. It got on her face and her dress.

Isa’s heart was beating fast and almost automatically she closed her eyes and thought about all the things that made her glow. She wanted her snake friend, she needed it right now. So she thought about the walk they had going down here: the daisies in the field and the promises mommy made about what they were going to eat tonight.

Everybody laughed at her mom. Someone stroked Isa’s head in a very aggressive sort of way. ‘Poor demon child! Look at your mother!’ They grabbed her head so that she had to look at her mom, but she closed her eyes.

‘A dirty old hag.’

Isa got angry, but concentrated on the day daddy took her to the wolf hunt, when she sat on the horse with him. The glowing inside her grew bigger and bigger. It became too big, way too big, but Isa couldn’t control it anymore. Before she could do anything about, the huge Irish Wolfhound jumped out of her hand. It blinded her and everyone else with it’s glow. The crowd screamed in terror as the dog rushed at them. It hit one of the men with his head with such force that the man fell over. Isa put her hands over her face and tightly closed her eyes. What did she do?

Within seconds, the market square was completely deserted. The dog came running back from hunting the townspeople down, circled a few times around them and with a faint tingly sound, the dog vanished like smoke in the air.

Isa’s mother got up, grabbed her daughter by the arm and they started running. Away from the town.

‘I’m sorry, mom, I’m sorry,’ cried Isolda.

They didn’t stop running until they got home, way up in the forest on the hill, and immediately mom started packing. All the jars with herbs got into a big bag, along with mom’s clothes. Another, smaller bag got filled with Isa’s clothes. Isa hadn’t said anything since they got out of town and neither had her mom.

‘What’s going to happen?’ Isolda said now, with her heart thumping in her throat. It made it hard to talk.

‘Nothing, we just need to go away. Very far away.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s not safe here.’

‘What will they do?’

Mommy came to her and pressed a kiss on her forehead. Then she gave her the bag with her clothes. ‘Nothing, if we leave now.’

Isa was determined to know the truth. ‘And if we wouldn’t leave?’

‘Then they would do bad things, but never to you. I promise. Now, come on.’

They walked out of the door. Mom didn’t even bother to close it. They walked very fast and not on the forest paths. They had never left the forest paths before.

‘Faster, Isa.’

‘Why?’

‘We need to be as far away as possible when it gets dark.’

‘But where are we going?’

Her mom was quiet for a few seconds, then she said: ‘Maybe the man can help us.’

‘The man with the blood and the baby?’

‘We need to get there before dark.’

‘But he lives really far away!’

Her mom looked over her shoulder and Isa fell silent. She had never seen her mother like that. She looked more scared than even Isa felt.

‘I know,’ her mom simply said.


	5. Chapter 5

They didn’t say much until the sun went down. When it got almost too dark to see, her mom stopped and ran her hands through her hair. They were still in the middle of the forest. They hadn’t even reached the top of the hill next to the one they lived on, because they had to go all the way around the neighboring town so as not to be seen.

Mom closed her eyes, made a cup of her hands and breathed in it a few times. Isolda didn’t dare say anything.

‘Okay,’ her mom then said. ‘We’ll stay here for the night. And hope for the best.’

‘I’m really sorry, mom,’ Isa blurted out. ‘I didn’t want to show anyone.’

‘I know, honey, it’s okay. You couldn’t help it, I was the same when I was your age. You will learn to control it, but it takes time. We just need more time.’

‘Are we really witches, mom? Hags, like the woman said?’

Her mom was arranging the bags in such a way that they could sleep on them. ‘Yes, Isolda, we are. And it’s a miracle you should be proud of, not scared. You can do marvelous things when you learn how to use it.’

‘But witches get killed.’

‘Ssh... Come sit with me.’

‘They do,’ insisted Isa. ‘I saw it.’

Her mom looked at her in shock. ‘When?’

‘Last year. I saw smoke and when I got up to look I saw it. Is that the stakes they always talk about?’

‘Ssh, baby, don’t talk about it. Talk about something nice. Show me what you did on the market square. The silvery things you can make.’

Isolda was distracted at once. ‘I can do a dog and a snake.’

‘Really?’

She closed her eyes, but it was fairly easy to call out the snake at this moment. She was already feeling a bit safe, sitting next to her mom on the soft bag. Isa gave the snake to her mom. It curled around her arm and she smiled.

‘And the dog?’ her mom asked after a few seconds with the snake. ‘Is it always so angry?’

‘No, it is sweet.’ Isolda made the snake vanish and concentrated on happy things. It was a bit harder to do. She still felt scared, tired and hunted down. But thinking of mom saying it was not her fault, her mom not being angry, being here with her, promising it will be alright… When Isolda opened her eyes, the immense Irish wolfhound was silently walking on the mossy forest floor. It stared at mommy and got closer. Isa’s mother looked a little uncomfortable, until the huge dog licked her face. She and Isa both started laughing. The dog curled up behind their backs, so Isa and her mom could lay their head on it. It felt warm and soft, as if they were leaning on an enormous pile of dandelion fluff. With one arm around the dog and one around her mommy’s waist, Isolda fell asleep to the rhythm of the dog’s heartbeat.

 

**...**

 

Suddenly, Isolda got brutally shaken awake. The big dog vanished at once. ‘What?’

Her mom was sitting up straight, listening carefully. It was still dark, although the sky looked a little more blue and a little less black than earlier. They could vaguely see.

‘I heard something.’

Isolda looked around and listened too. Then she saw it. ‘There’s a light.’

Her mom got to her feet. ‘Run. Quiet.’

Isolda ran, as she was told so often. If mommy says run, you run. If mommy says hide, you hide. It was one of the only rules she was ever taught and now she did, without asking questions. They ran as quietly as they could and as fast as they could. Branches hit her in the face and tree roots hurt her ankles, but they kept going. She could tell from her mom’s terrified face how important it was.

Then the yelling started.

‘I saw them!’

‘Here!’

Mommy grabbed Isa’s hand tightly and looked around. ‘I don’t see anyone.’

‘I heard them!’ a voice really close to them called. Her mom gasped in fright and they started running without staying quiet. As fast as they could they tried to get out of the forest and into the next town, or at least lose the hunters.

Isolda could hardly keep up with her mother. She was more or less hauled behind her. If Isa was a kite, she would have flown high above her mom’s head. Isa’s heart was in her throat, beating like it tried to break free and they were both panting like mad. And still, the yelling continued, all the way around them. And it grew.

‘Here they are!’ ‘I saw them!’ ‘I heard them’ ‘They are here!’ ‘We got them!’ ‘We’re closing in!’

‘No, they’re not,’ muttered mommy.

‘Can’t you use magic?’ Isa whispered.

‘I never learned,’ mommy whispered back. ‘Too scared.’ Her mom panted for breath. ‘Fool.’

Right at that moment, they bumped into some man. He looked enormous to Isa. Her mom pulled her away, only to bump into the next one. They turned around, but there were men behind them too.

They were surrounded.


	6. Chapter 6

Mommy wheezed, her eyes still flashing from left to right looking for a way to escape. But there was no way. The entire town’s folk seemed to be right there in the forest, even the women and even people they had never seen. Some of them had torches, some of them had weapons: sticks, shovels, rakes and swords. Isa held her mom’s hand very tight and wished she could call her wolfhound back. She knew that would only make things worse.

‘I’m so sorry, honey,’ her mom said as she pulled Isa close to her body. Five of the biggest men came forward with ropes. They tied Isa and her mother up as completely as they could. Their wrists were tied together and their ankles were locked in such a way that they could only walk. Then they got a piece of dirty cloth in their mouths, so they couldn’t even speak.

The walk back to the village was torture. It took ages and ages. When they were fleeing away from the village they could move and talk and they had hope. Now, they had trouble walking, they kept tripping over their own ropes or over roots of trees. And the only thing they could think about was what would happen when they arrived. Isa wished she could do more than just create a foggy dog from thin air. She wished she could shoot fire or lightning or look really scary. If only she could grow snakes from her hair who could stone people, like Medusa. There were so many possibilities and she could do none. They were going to be accused of witchcraft, yet they could not do witchcraft even now their life depended on it. It was so unfair.

Soon, the skin on her ankles and wrists started to get blisters from the ropes. When they were about halfway it felt like she didn’t have any skin left. It hurt so bad Isolda silently started crying. She wished she could at least summon the snake, but was scared she would accidently get the dog. She couldn’t hide the dog. Still, she tried to do what her mother had always taught her: think happy thoughts, but it didn’t work. She was in too much pain and worried about everything. It was impossible to think of anything happy.

At long last they entered the village. Wherever they walked, they gathered a crowd. Everyone they met, followed them, yet it was awfully quiet. If people spoke, they whispered. It made the air sound a bit like it was storming. And all the whispers were about Isa and her mother. It was torture. Isolda didn’t know what was worse: the ropes or the enormous judgement. People looked at her like she was the devil: terrified and full of hatred. She hadn’t hurt a soul in her life.

When they finally got to the market square, there were hundreds of people around them, all staring at Isa and her mom. Isolda didn’t even know there were that many people. Maybe some had come from the other town, Isa thought, just to see what would happen to them.

At some point the people had stopped whispering, but now they were all screaming and yelling the most terrible things at them. Isa had heard a lot of terrible things being shouted at her by the townspeople, but never the things they yelled now and never by so many people at the same time. They wanted her dead, they wanted to see her get hurt, they said she deserved every bit of pain, that she was a demon’s child. She had never known there was so many different ways in which people could get killed, and now she learned them because people wanted those things to happen to her. She tried to put her fingers in her ears, but one man on her left – she recognized him as the baker – brutally pulled her arm away and hauled her forward by the rope round her wrists. It hurt like hell, but now she refused to cry, or at least she tried. For some reason the tears were still streaming down her face. But she didn’t make a sound and she didn’t show any other sign of emotion. Looking aside to her mom, she saw her do the same. She held her head high and looked people square in the eye, as if she wanted to call them out on what they were doing. Her mom looked as though she would be furiously screaming back if that cloth hadn’t been in her mouth. Isolda bet that her mother wished she knew how to do magic now too. They would roast them, Isa and her. 

Then Isolda looked down. The thought of roasting other people wasn’t satisfying at all. She could only think of the smell and the fear and the hurt those people would feel. She would never enjoy something like that. How could these people enjoy doing this to them? Why were they doing this?

At that moment they were shoved onto a tiny staircase that led to a wooden stage. Three men were holding her and her mom, as if they could run away if they hadn’t. Isa wanted to spit on them, like she had once seen her mother do when someone had grabbed her arm one day in town. Her mom could look very fearsome when she wanted to. She was doing it right now.

When her mom noticed Isa looking at her, her face softened. She winked at her, but in a very sad way. Isa was a bit comforted, but only because she knew her mom wanted her to feel that way.

She wasn’t listening to anything the mayor was saying. He was explaining something very loudly so all the crowd could hear. Isa filtered the important stuff: witchcraft was carried on from mother to daughter. They would take them to the witch’s bridge.

The whole crowd started to cheer at that point, because everyone knew what happened at the witch’s bridge. Isa’s heart skipped a beat and then started to pound like mad. She didn’t know what the witch’s bridge was, but the cheering of the crowd could not mean anything good.

‘Then…’ continued the man, even louder now. ‘We will test the mother, by releasing her in the water. If she floats, she’s a witch. Therefore, the child is also a witch and the two of them will be burned at the stake. If she doesn’t, she is not. Then and only then, can we spare the child.’

Isolda’s eyes became very, very big as these words sank in. She stared at her mom, truly terrified at this point, but her mom didn’t look back. Her eyes were fixed tightly on the ground.

Because now Isa finally understood something her mother never wanted to explain before. Now she discovered why her mom had sewn in tiny, heavy weights in the hems of all her dresses. She had known this could happen. She had known this was what they would do. And she had known that drowning herself was the only way to save Isa.


	7. Chapter 7

Isolda tried to scream, but nobody heard, and nobody cared. At this point, her crying couldn’t be stopped anymore.

Again, they were pushed to walk, but now Isolda wasn’t going to comply anymore. She kicked around the best she could and hit people with her elbows. She tried to spit out the cloth in her mouth, but before she managed to, she got picked up by her waist as if she weighed nothing and carried down to the witch’s bridge over someone’s shoulder. She had never felt so powerless and so embarrassed. Isolda screamed and hit the man in his back, but he didn’t even seem to notice. She had never felt so helpless, so frustrated and so terrified in her entire life.

They put her back on her feet when they reached the bridge. Somebody was holding her shoulders, and in such a forceful way that she couldn’t move an inch. If it were another situation, she would have been hurt by the force – it would certainly leave bruises – but now she didn’t feel it. It was nothing in comparison to the pain inside her.

The witch’s bridge was an old, stone bridge, crossing a deep river that ran around the town. Mom never like to cross it and preferred to walk a long way to avoid crossing the river at all. Isolda used to think that was because the bridge was very steep and the cobbles were easy to trip over. Now she understood a lot of things.

She stared as they dragged her mom all the way up to the bridge. There she stood, all alone surrounded by five men. Suddenly, her mom looked up at Isolda. The two of them stared at each other as if they were telepathically talking. They weren’t though. Oh, how Isolda wished they could. Her mom would probably tell her to think positively still, but how could she now? This was all Isa’s fault. Because of her stupid wolfhound her mom would be forced to jump of the witch’s bridge, with her weighed-down dress.

She remembered the moment when her mother sewed in the weights and let Isolda help her. Isa did that by taking the bit of wood where the thread was wrapped around and running away with it, unrolling the thread as she went. Her mom had gotten very annoyed and as revenge she got Isa and wrapped her tightly in the thread. She had to turn a bit every time mommy needed another inch of thread and both tried not to laugh, because they were supposed to be angry.

Her mom stepped gracefully up on the bridge’s ledge. Isa closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch.

She thought of everything that happened right until then: about the running away and the moment in the forest; her mother’s face when Isa showed her the snake and the dog. She thought about every time Isa and her mom went into the forest at full moon to pick herbs and flowers. She thought about the songs they sang and the secret language only the two of them could speak. She thought of the warmth her mom gave in the coldest nights. She thought of all the long afternoons where her mom tried to teach her to read and Isa would only say bad words, because she thought it was funny. She thought of her mom finally giving up and laughing with her about all the bad words and even saying some herself, just because she could. Isa remembered the moments with her mom and dad, lying in the sun. Just the three of them, close together with Isa in the middle. She still felt the warmth of the sun and their arms around her waist. She remembered the smell of rain in her mom’s hair when she got back from town and the branches in both their hair when they got back from the woods. Her mom would always have a hard time plucking all the leaves and twigs from their thick, long hair. Half the forest would get stuck in it. And she always – always – smelled like the woods and the fire.

Remembering all that and thinking about what was about to happen, Isa’s hands started to get uncontrollably hot. Isa was so caught up in the memory of her mom’s smell and the little lights in her eyes and the pain she felt thinking about everything she would miss when her mother jumped, that she didn’t notice. She felt an incredible strength grow inside her. All the fear she had felt washed away into this enormous ferociousness. It surged through her body and under her skin. When she did notice, she didn’t really care anymore what it was or meant. There was no way she could make this situation any worse anymore. Somehow she managed to channel the strength and heat through her arms and hands, in the same way she had done with the snake and the dog.

Only when she felt it leave her body through her fingers, she opened her eyes…


	8. Chapter 8

A huge, silver creature flew out of her hands. It had wings and was at least twice as big as Isa’s house. It looked foggy and silver like the snake and the dog, but in a way more solid way. She had to look twice before she understood what just flew out of her furiousness. She had never really seen anything like it, except in a picture once. It was a dragon, and a terrifying one. It had spikes on it’s back and tail and its wings unfolded as it flew. Together they were almost the same size of the bridge. It flew towards her mom, who was still standing on top of the bridge. The five men guarding her tried to scare it away with their torches and swords, but the dragon was not impressed. It breathed silver fire in their direction and they jumped and ran off as fast as they could.

Only now, Isolda noticed the hand on her shoulder were gone. She turned around and saw that most of the crowd had fled. Only some were still watching from a safe distance way down on the road to the bridge. The dragon circled protectively around Isolda’s mother, looking at the crowd as if it was daring them to come any closer. Isolda spit out the cloth and walked towards her mother and the dragon as fast as she could, yet trying to make it seem as if she was someone to be scared of. She knew the dragon couldn’t hurt a fly though. The fire probably wasn’t hot at all. She knew what the silver fog felt like and she knew it couldn’t possibly feel like real fire. The town’s people should never find out about this though.

The feeling of strength and fierceness that had weakened a bit when the dragon left her hands, became stronger again as she got closer to it. In the same way as the snake seemed to be her happiness in solid form, the dragon seemed to be all the enormous feelings she had just felt in solid form. Looking at her mother’s face, it seemed that she was feeling it too standing next to the dragon. Her eyes burned with fury.

The dragon stepped aside for Isolda and lovingly bumped his against her for a second. Behind it, her mother was scraping the ropes against the bridge’s ledge, to cut herself lose. As soon as she managed this, she untied Isolda as quickly as she could and hugged her so tightly it hurt.

‘I love you,’ she softly said, but the words sounded heavy with emotion. Then she untied her own ankles and hugged her again. ‘What do we do? Can we ride the dragon? Is that safe?’

Isa petted the dragon to feel if it was solid. It was a bit. Like the wolfhound it felt like a cushion: you sank into it, but not through it – and it was very warm.

Mommy helped to push Isolda on the dragon’s neck and then climbed on it herself. The dragon even helped her, by lowering his head so she could easily climb on the neck.

As soon as they were both sitting on the dragon – Isolda safely between her mother’s arms – the dragon unfolded its wings again. Air was rushing around them, making their hair flow up in the air as if it was storming. The dragon bent its knees and took off. Suddenly, there wasn’t anything but air between them and the ground. If it wasn’t for the dragon’s radiation, Isa would have been scared to death. They were flying, actually flying, like a bird. The people beneath them were screaming, running away or staring at them with their mouths hanging open. The dragon breathed fire once more, to give them the scare of a lifetime.

Isolda could only laugh. This was the happiest moment of her life: looking at the town they so dreaded, fading as they literally flew away from their problems.

‘I know where to go,’ her mom said. 

 

**...**

 

Two years later, Isolda got her letter from Hogwarts. Out of the window of her new home, she could see the castle. Sometimes, if you looked closely and the weather was good, you could even see people flying around on broomsticks. Her new home town was full of witches and wizards. The dragon faded as soon as they landed and he never came back. All was well.


End file.
